Thursday, May 24, 2012

Although
I rarely watch the news on WPSD, I do get a lot of entertainment from
their Facebook page. There’s a certain Carlinesque, nihilistic joy in
having a front-row seat to the kind of willful ignorance that’s directly
responsible for human civilization’s steady downward spiral towards
Idiocracy. This ignorance is rarely more proudly displayed than during
the Confederate flag “discussions” that the Channel 6 web monkeys incite
every Tater Day and periodically throughout the year. It’s
really not surprising that there are strong feelings about the
Confederate flag in Kentucky, and especially in our part of the state.
After all, all the “brother against brother” cliches about the Civil War
apply doubly to Kentucky. Our state was the birthplace of both Abraham
Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Kentuckians fought on
both sides, several bloody battles and a lot of raids and skirmishes
took place here, and we were one of only two states (along with
Missouri) represented in the Confederate Congress despite officially
remaining part of the Union. Since Confederate sympathies were
especially strong in the western part of the state--Kentucky’s
Confederate shadow government’s capital was officially Bowling Green,
though in reality representatives spent most of the war in exile in
Tennessee--we have good reason to be conflicted about our Confederate
heritage, both as a region and as individuals. In
the interest of historical accuracy, I should probably mention that
what most people refer to as the “Confederate flag” was never actually
the flag of the Confederacy, though its design did appear as an element
on the second and third C.S.A. flags. The first Confederate national
flag--and the flag the name “Stars and Bars” actually referred to during
the Civil War era--closely resembled early American flags, but with
three broad stripes instead of thirteen and between seven and thirteen
stars (depending on the number of states in the Confederacy). In fact,
the C.S.A. flag was so similar to that of the Union that it was often
mistaken for the Stars and Stripes in the confusion of battle, leading
Confederate soldiers to fire on their own troops. In order to cut down
on the amount of friendly fire, the Confederate Army decided to adopt a
battle flag that was distinct enough to prevent confusion. They ended up
choosing a flag based on the “secessionist flag” of South Carolina, and
that’s the flag--the one southerners like airbrush Hank Jr. onto and
paint on the top of Dodge Chargers--that most people today think of as
the “Confederate flag.” Because the Confederacy was never rich in
resources or strong on logistics, the flag was never universally adopted
by the Confederate army, but its use by prominent units like Lee’s Army
of Northern Virginia made it a powerful symbol of the Civil War South. A
lot of people on both sides of the issue believe that some people
consider the flag to be a symbol of racism because it represented the
Confederacy and the Civil War was about slavery, but that’s a gross
oversimplification. At that point in our nation’s history, the balance
of power between the federal government and the states was still a point
of heated contention. In the pre-Civil War era the states were still to
some extent considered sovereign entities, with the federal government
playing a role more akin to the European Union today. As a result, many
people thought of themselves as citizens of a particular state rather
than citizens of the United States. Many southerners who were not slave
owners and were opposed to secession--notably Robert E. Lee--sided with
the Confederacy because they felt loyalty to their home state trumped
loyalty to the Union. It’s
also important to remember that when it comes to war, there’s usually a
disconnect between the real motivations of those in power and the
reasons that those who are actually doing the fighting believe they’re
getting shot at. While many of the loudest proponents of succession
certainly benefitted economically from slavery, most southerners didn’t
own slaves and many were economically marginalized because of plantation
agriculture. They wouldn’t support a war solely to protect the
institution of slavery any more than Americans a few years ago would
have supported a war to improve Halliburton’s bottom line and allow
Dubya to get revenge on the guy who tried to kill his daddy. Think of
“states’ rights” as the 1860s version of “weapons of mass destruction.”
As the war--mostly fought in the South--went on, many southerners who
neither supported slavery nor bought the states’ rights argument joined
the Confederate army for no other reason than to protect their homes and
communities. On
the other hand, the claim that the Civil War was entirely about state
sovereignty and had nothing to do with racism is just as much of an
oversimplification. Proponents of the “heritage” side of the argument
who accept that the institution of slavery was at the root of succession
often point out that the debate that led to the Civil War was about the
expansion of slavery to new states, not abolition, that the southern
states wanted to expand slavery for economic and political reasons that
had nothing to do with racism, and that black Southerners fought in the
Confederate army. These arguments, however, ignore the simple fact that
slavery in America was was based around the premise that people of
certain races were somehow “less human” than the rest of us. Therefore,
proponents of slavery were also implicit proponents of racism, and even
those who joined the Confederate cause to defend the rights of the
states were placing political concerns above the basic human rights of
slaves. In
light of history, the question of whether the South’s decision to
succeed from the Union was rooted in racism is “yes and no.” I realize
that in today’s political climate many people will find this kind of
nuance off-putting--after all, isn’t everything supposed to boil down to
two diametrically opposed alternatives that conveniently align with the
beliefs of the political parties who run the Two Man Con?--but it’s the
only conclusion that makes sense. Even if it were possible to conclude
that the Civil War was or was not about racism, so far we’ve only
covered the first few years of the Confederate flag’s history, so we’ve
about a century and a half to go. The meanings of symbols, like the
meanings of words, change over time. When a symbol becomes strongly
associated with a particular movement or idea, the old meanings are
often ruined. For example, the earliest use of the swastika was in
Bronze Age India, where it was a symbol of good fortune. About four
thousand years later (give or take a few centuries), the swastika was
adopted by a symbol of the Nazi party. The association was so strong
that today most people (especially in the West) who see a swastika
conclude that the person displaying it is Nazi scum. And they’re usually
right. For
the next 100 years or so after the civil war, America as a whole was
largely ambivalent about the Confederate flag. Some saw it as a reminder
of one of the worst times in our nation’s history, others felt it
honored southerners who had followed in the footsteps of the Founding
Fathers by taking up arms to defend themselves against what they saw as
government oppression. Because more than a few ex-Confederates became
involved in white supremacist groups after the war, the flag did take on
some racist associations, but for the most part these associations
weren’t especially strong. It was when the Civil Rights Movement started
building up steam that the Confederate flag was widely adopted as a
symbol by southern opponents of the movement, especially white
supremacist groups like the KKK. Some tried to claim that opposition to
Civil Rights, like the Civil War, were about state’s rights, but such
arguments were paper thin and it’s during this era that the phrase
gained its reputation as a racist dog whistle. More importantly, unlike
the southerners during the Civil War, the people now flying the flag
weren’t fighting an opposing army, they were committed acts of terrorism
against their fellow citizens because of the color of their skin. All
the levels of abstraction that existed during the Civil War era were
stripped away and to many the flag became a symbol of open and violent
racism. So,
heritage or hate? Once again, there’s not a simple “yes” or “no”
answer. In certain contexts, the flag can still be a genuine expression
of southern heritage. However, because of the flag’s co-option by racist
agitators, the choice to display it publicly reveals a certain level of
disregard for those who have been victimized by people flying it, just
like wearing a swastika reveals a lack of respect for Holocaust
survivors no matter how much you insist you’re wearing it for its
luck-bringing properties. Of course, that conclusion is based on
historical context, and most people who rally around the Confederate
flag have at best a vague grasp of its history. The truth is that for
most people who identify strongly with the Confederate flag, it’s about
tribalism. They wear it, fly it from the backs of their trucks, and
have it tattooed on their bodies to convey a sense of identity and
membership in a particular group. In this way, they’re a lot like the
people who brand themselves with sports team mascots or corporate logos.
The main difference is that people waving Kentucky Wildcat and
Harley-Davidson flags have never burned a cross on somebody’s lawn or
engaged in open warfare against their own government. Personally,
outside of a few very specific contexts I feel that public display of
the Confederate flag is offensive, but I also support the First
Amendment rights of those whose opinions differ from mine. However,
freedom of expression does not mean freedom from consequences, so people
who choose to display the Confederate flag need to accept that a lot of
people will interpret it as a sign of ignorance and racism. Likewise,
the First Amendment doesn’t guarantee you the right to display the
Confederate flag (or any other symbol) in all situations. Private
businesses can ask you to leave; school officials have considerable
power to enforce rules against potentially disruptive behavior,
including the display of symbols that some may find offensive; and
tuber-based civic festivals have every right to ban Confederate flags
from parades, even if those festivals are run by a government entity.
While freedom of speech is a Constitutional right, freedom to be in a
parade is not. Those who claim First Amendment violations where there
are none prove they meet at least half of the “ignorant racist”
stereotype associated with self-proclaimed “rebels.” Whether or not they
fulfill the “racist” part of the stereotype can usually be determined
by asking their opinions on things like welfare, rap music, and the
validity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.